CHESHUNT boroughs. The following are urban districts: Alderley Edge (2856), Alsager (2597), Altrincham (16,831), Ashton-upon-Mersey (5563), Bollington (5244), Bowdon (2788), Bredbury and Romiley (7107), Bromborough (1891), Buglawton (1452), Cheadle and Gatley (10,807), Higher Bebington (1540), Hollingworth (2447), Hoole (5341), Hoylake and West Kirby (10,911), Knutsford (5172), Lower Bebington (8387), Lymm (4707), Marple (5595), Middlewich (4669), Mottram in Longendale (3128), Nantwich (7722), Neston-cum-Parkgate (4154), Northwich (17,609), Runcorn (16,491), Sale (12,088), Sandbach (5556), Tarporley (2644), Wallasey (53,580), Wilmslow (7361), Winsford (10,382), and Yeardsleycum-Whaley (1487). The county is in the North Wales circuit, and assizes are held at Chester. The boroughs of Congleton, Crewe, Macclesfield, Stalybridge, and Stockport have separate commissions of the peace and separate courts of quarter sessions. The ancient county—which is chiefly in the diocese of Chester and partly in those of Lichfield, Manchester, and St Asaph— contains 254 entire ecclesiastical parishes. Education.—There, is a residential training college (Chester, Manchester, and Liverpool diocesan) at Chester. The total number of elementary schools on 31st August 1899 was 488, of which only 36 were board, and 452 were voluntary schools, the latter including 334 National Church of England schools, 28 Wesleyan, 29 Roman Catholic, and 61 “British and other.” The average attendance at board schools was 10,024, and at voluntary schools 93,609. The total school board receipts for the year ended 29th September 1898 were over £67,693. The income under the Technical Instruction Act was over £55, and that under the Agricultural Rates Act was over £802. Communications.—Besides being traversed by a network of railways and numerous small canals, Cheshire is now skirted on the north by the Manchester Ship Canal, opened in 1894. (See under Lancashibe.) Agriculture.—Within recent years much attention has been paid to the improvement of agriculture by special training in dairy work and in farming. Nearly five-sixths of the total area is under cultivation, and of this about three-fifths is in permanent pasture, chiefly tor dairy-farming purposes—the manufacture of cheese and milk supply. More than 14,000 acres are in hill pasturage, nearly 2500 acres under orchards, and over 24,000 acres under woods. Oats occupy about three-fourths of the acreage under corn crops, and potatoes more than one-half of that under green crops, only about one-fourth being planted with turnips and swedes. There is a considerable acreage under small fruit. The following table gives the larger main divisions of the cultivated area at intervals of five years from 1880 :— Total Area Corn Green Permanent Year. under Cul- Crops. Crops. Clover. Pasture. Fallow. tivation. 1880 536.348 79,534 37,043 54,644 363,420 1707 1885 540,551 79,472 42,091 58,818 359,580 590 1890 541.348 80,986 38,887 62,390 357,128 771 1895 539,555 78,242 39,483 63,621 355,750 495 1900 536,332 82,449 41,933 70,987 339,023 266 _ The following table gives particulars regarding the principal live stock for the same years :— Cows or Heifers in Milk or in Sheep. Pigs. Calf. 23,081 151,866 91,174 97,892 49,971 21,966 172,019 101,892 86,343 62,988 22,314 167,465 99,650 106,418 77,464 26,143 170,136 102,791 92,456 78,392 26,917 182,633 107,406 103,456 70,126 Industries and Trade.—According to the report of the chief inspector of factories for 1898 (1900) the total number of persons employed in factories and workshops in 1897 was 112,598, as compared with 114,391 in 1896. The number employed in textile factories was 43,182 ; between 1895 and 1896 there was an increase in the number of 2‘3 per cent., but between 1896 and 1897 a decrease of 0'5. The main textile industry is cotton, employing 34,446 persons ; silk employs 8025 persons. The non-textile factories in 1897 employed 60,936 persons, there being an increase between 1895 and 1896 of 6"4 per cent., and a decrease between 1896 and 1897 of 3'0 per cent. Over a third (20,766) were in 1897 employed in the manufacture of machines, conveyances, tools, &c. On the Mersey there are a number of shipbuilding yards, in addition to several large engine, machine, and iron works. In the manufacture of chemicals 5874 persons were employed, in clothing industries 9555, in print, bleach, and dye works 4474, and in the founding and conversion of metal 5068. Workshops in 1897 employed 8480 persons, of whom 4205 were employed in the clothing industry and 1054 in that of food. In 1899 there were 3489 perYear.
Total Horses.
Total Cattle.
— CHESNEY 749 sons employed in mines and quarries. In the same year 127,972 tons of sandstone were raised, 26,785 of gravel and sand, and 20,967 of clay ; but the principal minerals are coal and salt. The output of coal in 1890 was 637,402 tons, valued at £191,221 ; and in 1899 it was 721,431 tons, valued at £270,537. Rock-salt is obtained at Northwich and Winsford, and salt from brine is manufactured at Lawton, Wheelock Yalley, Middlewich, Northwich, and Winsford. In the case of rock-salt the value in the returns is lumped with that of Lancashire, and in the case of salt from brine the quantity is lumped with that of Staffordshire, so that exact statements of the tonnage and value of the annual production are impossible ; but in 1899 the amount was at least considerably over 1,000,000 tons, and the value must have closely approached £400,000. Authorities.—Among the principal works are: Sir John Doddridge. History of the Ancient and Modern State of the Principality of Hales, Duchy of Cornwall, and Earldom of Chester. London, 1630 ; 2nd ed. 1714.—King. The Pale - Roy all of England, or the County. Palatine of Cheshire Illustrated, 4 parts. London, 1656 ; abridged by T. Hughes, London, 1852. — Hanshall. History of the County Palatine of Chester. Chester, 1817-23.— J. O. Halliwell. Palatine Anthology. London, 1850.—Baines. Lancashire and Cheshire, 2 vols. London, 1868-69.—Ormerod. History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, 3 vols. London, 1819 ; new ed. 3 vols., London, 1875-82.—Earwaker. East Cheshire, 2 vols. London, 1877.—Wilbraham. Glossary. London, 1820 ; 2nd ed., London, 1826 ; and Glossary founded on Wilbraham by E. Leigh, London, 1877.—Croston. Historic Sites of Cheshire, Manchester, 1883 ; and County Families of Cheshire, Manchester, 1887.—Axon. Cheshire Gleanings. Manchester, 1884.—Watkin. Roman Cheshire. Liverpool, 1886.— Holland. Glossary of Words used in the County of Cheshire. London, 1884-86.—Philips. Views of Old Halls in Cheshire. London, 1893.—Thornley. Monumental Brasses of Cheshire. Hull, 1893 ; and Andrews, Byegone Cheshire. Chester, 1895. See also various volumes of the Chetham Society and of the Record Society of Manchester, as well as the Proceedings of the Cheshire Antiquarian Society, and Cheshire Notes and Queries. H ^ Cheshunt, a town and railway station in the Hertford parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, on the Lea, 7 miles S. of Hertford. Cheshunt College for theological instruction was established here in 1792 by the countess of Huntingdon. There are an ancient church, recently restored, two halls for public meetings, church rooms, a cottage hospital, and a recreation ground of 8 acres. Nursery and market gardening, largely under glass, brick-making, and saw-mills are the chief industries. Area of parish (an urban district), 8480 acres: population (1881), 7736; (1901), 12,288. Chesney, Sir George Tomkyns (18301895), English general, colonel-commandant of Koyal (late Bengal) Engineers, youngest son of Captain Charles Cornwallis Chesney of the Bengal Artillery, was born at Tiverton, Devonshire, on 30th April 1830. Educated at Blundell’s School, Tiverton, and at Addiscombe, he entered the Bengal Engineers as second lieutenant on 8th December 1848. He was employed for some years in the Public Works Department and, on the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, joined the Ambala column, was fieldengineer at the battle of Badli-ke-serai, brigade-major of engineers throughout the siege of Delhi, and was severely wounded in the assault (medal and clasp and a brevet majority). In 1860 he was appointed head of a new department in connexion with the Public Works accounts. His work on Indian Polity (1868), dealing with the administration of the several departments of the Indian Government, attracted wide attention and remains a permanent text-book. The originator of the Royal Indian Civil Engineering College at Cooper’s Hill, Staines, he was also its first president (1871-80). In 1871 he contributed to Blackwood’s Magazine a brilliant skit called “ The Battle of Dorking ”—a picture of what might happen if the victorious German army, after defeating France, invaded England—which was republished in many editions and translations, and produced a profound
